Former defense secretary Robert Gates says Congress “probably” should have declared war on Iraq before invading in 2003, and added that it should do the same before any attack on Iran.

Gates, speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast as part of the promotion tour for his just-published Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, said it is a way for Congress to re-establish its role in the nation’s most critical life-and-death decisions.

Time asked Gates the question, noting that in his former role as college president, he was familiar with elective courses. He smiled at a reference to the U.S. public—much like some busy college students who simply audit courses, without earning grades or credit—that merely audits the nation’s wars. Might a congressional declaration of war focus the nation’s mind on the challenges inherent in combat?

“I think that the hurdle for the use of military force, particularly in the absence of an immediate threat to the United States, imposed by requiring a congressional act, would not necessarily be a bad thing,” he said.

“I think the bar for preventive war ought to be very high,” he added. “Iraq was a preventive war. An attack on Iran today would be a preventive war.”

Gates began serving as defense secretary in late 2006 under President George W. Bush, three years after the Iraq war began. He continued in his Pentagon job under President Obama until June 2011, six months before the last U.S. troops left Iraq.

The one-time CIA chief also expressed leeriness over building a case for war, with Iraq or any other nation, based on intelligence reports. The key U.S. intelligence claim—that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction—proved to be unfounded. “I, perhaps better than almost anyone, am familiar with both the strengths and the weaknesses of U.S. intelligence,” he said. “And to make a decision to go to war purely on the basis of intelligence assessments—and absent a smoking gun—I think is a very `iffy’ matter.”

The war over going to war was papered over by the passage of 1973’s War Powers Resolution, which allows a President to wage war for 60 days before requiring a congressional authorization for the use of military force. President George W. Bush got such approval from Congress five months before invading Iraq. But such a resolution doesn’t carry the weight of a declaration of war, and lawmakers seem eager to avoid votes on such declarations.

“This is a place where I think the Congress ought to assert itself,” Gates said. “The irony is, I believe in recent years—and, coming from me, this is a strange thing to say—but one of the things that I lament is that, because of the changes in the Congress, I think they’ve become less important in the governance of the nation—they’ve weakened themselves in the decision-making process.”

Gates has criticized the willingness of the nation to go to war in recent decades. “We have so many other tools of American influence around the world, in addition to the military, and we always make the assumptions that the use of military force will be short, it will be over…and we’ll be done,” he said.

But that rarely happens—1991’s Gulf War being the most recent exception, he noted. “On these matters of war and peace,” Gates said, “I think that the Congress has been very timid.”

Was that a yes? Time asked again. Should the U.S. Congress have declared war on Iraq before committing 4,486 American lives and at least $1 trillion to the effort?

“You were asking me if the Congress should have declared war—should have been asked to declare war—on Iraq,” he said. “As I say, I hadn’t thought about it before—but my initial instinct in response is probably yes.”

.
Void void void elections void as farce and tragedy and Action violent ,
bloody sectarian heroes gangsters came from behind the border and
traitors of Iraq and the spies and agents of foreign .... Accordingly,
the vote in the elections for the Day 30 / April / 2014 accompanied by
war, genocide and bloodshed Sunnis Arabs
and is an essential component and important part of the Iraqi people by
the Maliki government and its army and militia terrorist void according
to international laws, elections must be held in an atmosphere of safe
and secure and to enable all the people to cast their ballots without
Mazaiqat and the imposition of a curfew by the security forces of
repressive associated with al-Maliki on lawyers and legal Iraqis the
Arab and international organizations, the international community and
civil society organizations access more to prevent this farce and
horrific disaster , forgery, intentional either prevent voters from
reaching polling stations in the regions and provinces and cities
inhabited by Sunnis Arabs of Iraqis or grab voters by force in favor of
the point of influential threat and intimidation and coercion ,
intimidation and enticement .. ..
and here are Mission (UNAMI ) supervising the elections and the
Government of the United States and the mullahs of Tehran collaborators
in crime election and depriving the population of Iraq aboriginal people
of the Sunni Arabs to participate effectively in the elections in order
to enable them to plunder the riches of the Iraqis and continued in the
series of killings and genocide of the Sunnis Arabs and
the participation of the government, which up fraud to the helm of
government corruption and theft, make Iraq into a spiral permanent non
Msagr security and economically for the continuation of the so-called
political process dirty that brought Iraqis to death and destruction ,
displacement and looting the wealth and the destruction of
infrastructure (SOA and economic and social .... and .. etc

This story is not to entertain ... a practical reality on
the ground ...
If Okrmt ... Karim queen ....... If Okrmt Varmint rebellion ? ?

Said a man entered the desert and you 'd like to see someone has the rest . I
saw the old man sitting between her hands and a sheep dead and seated beside
her puppy wolf I told her what happened . Wolf said this puppy Ahtdhanah a
small and weak we introduced our house and Rbinah in the center of our family
and has made ​​us Astamana Hatna fed milk from Cold and considered her up
large and strong bones and teeth have grown and spun his muscles . This morning
attacked the Hatna which is his mother's breast Afqatlha evil killers ... ! ! !
The man looked into the eyes of a wolf pup to say about San shate old man was
killed and shocked my heart and you are the Son stepson to Hatna feedback from
the udders and grew up among us ... who Onbok that your father was a wolf if
foul tempers and poor do not benefit the literature nor milk ... ! ! ! Vhmar of
accompanying Varmint and honoring will not work with like generosity ....
This story is not to entertain but to prompt all of the afflicted from the pain
of denial of the beautiful and self- directed this story of American
politicians who have embraced a group of collaborators deceptively secretly
with Iran's rulers to facilitate the occupation of Iraq in 2003 . To implement
its agenda, based on the establishment of an empire stretching from the Grand
Knight of the Atlantic to the borders of India . ( ( ( Witness today's threats,
the mullahs of Tehran 's occupation of the occupied Palestine is very clear by
moving its wing Representative of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in order to
strengthen its position to be strengthening its position on the borders of
Palestine of Hamas and support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and
stick with it and to prevent the fall of Outlaw tyrannical regime fought the
Syrian people under the pretext of lack of empowerment of extremists from the
rule of Syria? ? ? ))) did not stay in front of him only impediment Iraq . In
order that the work of collaborators authored lies on Iraq pray for injustice
Shiites and lied to the politicians, the White House Lie followed the other to
the occupation of Iraq under the pretext of Iraq's possession of weapons of
mass destruction and providing false reports claiming relationship with
Saddam's regime with al-Qaida and show after the occupation of Iraq in 2003 all
of those allegations pure fabrication and a lie. While the real intent of those
campaigns Altzlilih planned by the mullahs of Tehran is the destruction of Iraq
and to facilitate the occupation by coalition forces, then work on the delivery
of Iraq to Iran Iran without losing any soldier or military stomach or money .
After that failed in the occupation of Iraq in the eight-year war in the
eighties of the last century .. but paying the bill of occupation and loss of
lives of American soldiers , equipment and money obtained from taxes is the
American people by the seducer . The more the losses suffered by the U.S.
occupation forces are were funded by Iran .... It is theft of Iraqi funds that
were carried out ( by the wolves ) oriented members of the government in Iraq
loyal to Iran by the Government of smuggled into Tehran's mullahs . Were back
those stolen from Iraqi funds in the form of car bombs and sticky bombs and
improvised explosive devices , weapons and equipment borne arms dealers to
various cities in Iraq and militias trained to murder , assassinations and
quality processes , distributed in kegs for them in the various governorates of
Iraq 's occupation forces to target and force it to withdraw to vacate the
atmosphere in Iraq without partner gripped by its implementation ... this does
not mean that we deny the role of the honest Iraqi resistance in the resistance
against the occupation in 2003 , 2007. Before that Iran is training fighters
under the name of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq .... and the tip of
the iceberg ... but not painful that extended a hand of known ungrateful for
the unknown , even if the pain will remain Kabert cynicism thrives in yourself
and makes you feel bitterness and frustration and sadness as long as life runs
within you ........

Her short story meanings and lessons
dedicated to the great American politicians ....
There was a man named (son of Butti ) fond of hunting in the wild since his
youth, then married the man and the fact that a large family of five girls only
. And fishing in the wild are not twins girls. Think of the man in the case of
injury or disability weakness when you get older how age can provide for his
family living. He got the idea to raise and train a bird hunter takes every day
to teach him how to catch and return to the house . The man carried the idea
without thinking carefully about what is the quality of the bird which must be
used . One day, the wounded man's disease, he decided to send Tira , who took
care of him and his path to good fishing . Fjhzh several fishing . Gold bird ,
flying in the wild and in the afternoon of that day came back and took the bird
hovering above the courtyard of the house of the man . All came out of the
house to the patio happily waiting for them to deliver their hunger hunting to
fill their hunger . If this bird throwing them snake serious and very large ..
Their joy turned to horror and great fear they took outside the house fleeing
fearing the wrath of their Viper ... Tried to calm the man grabbed Btair scan
on his head and came to him and took Bghazal mummified re- training of new ...
He decided one day to test the bird trained by well-trained and took care of
him .. He sent a man to his family asking them to return to the house and told
them that he intends to test conducted on the bird . And he sent the bird for
hunting and took the man alone waiting for the return of the bird , along with
good fishing . Returned the bird and if it throws pack black on the courtyard
of the house which made the man surprised by what he saw and is shocked at the
sight appalling bird this time R all types of snakes hazardous and threw it in
the back garden of the house of the man , which terrified his family for the
second time so they decided to all leave the men and leave the house and spread
risk to its neighbors. Then remorse man (son of Butti ) in the chosen bird mis
. Causing him to lose his family and his neighbors , friends and lose his
reputation and credibility among nations and the world ... And taking the hits
like ( bird son Butti ) on each of the picks from friends or people or bad
check policy thoughtful of others carefully focused and super ... What Tstenbton
of this story is based on the political reality practiced by some powerful
countries in the world today ?

Hundreds battalions fighting the system and do not claim to
jurisdiction over the Syrians because they lead their minds they think only
Daasha came and with it the Caliph, the judge and the mufti and the policeman
... As if the Syrians a minor ignorant people need to be governed from! Fought
for God's sake if you want God and the Hereafter and enough distortion of Islam
and Tbgadha people do. Amused Daasha Why refuse to refer the matter to the
Court of the legitimacy of an independent? They refuse because they are deadly
gang and gangs do not like the courts, of course. Thank God, things began to
unfold and started to differentiate rows Today brigade David split from whence
all Daash and loyal and has the atom Hundreds battalions fighting the system
and do not claim to jurisdiction over the Syrians because they lead their minds
they think only Daasha came and with it the Caliph, the judge and the mufti and
the policeman ... As if the Syrians a minor ignorant people need to be governed
from! Fought for God's sake if you want God and the Hereafter and enough
distortion of Islam and Tbgadha people do. Amused Daasha Why refuse to refer
the matter to the Court of the legitimacy of an independent? They refuse
because they are deadly gang and gangs do not like the courts, of course. Thank
God, things began to unfold and started to differentiate rows Today brigade
David split from whence all Daash and loyal and has the atom

Who are the terrorist Daash?daash terrorist organization
they are from the second sideof
the base of the Iranian-backed ? the
word means Daash shortcuts Persian translation of the so-called (the state of
Iraq and the Levant Islamic) in the Persian language means (Islamic State of Iraq Cham) the real
intent of this label (the state of Iraq
and the Levant Persian)??? Those terrorist forces consists of Hezbollah forces and tha Shi'ite Amal movement and the opposition
in lebanon and Hamas, the Palestinian and the Houthi Yemeni Nusayris upper in
Syria and militias Abu Fadel Abbas Iraqi and Iraqi Hezbollah and the League of
the headbands Iraqi Shiites of Bahrain
and eastern Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria Morocco and Egypt and the Shiites of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, the Caucasus and Chechnya and clients and
clients hired from Sunnis Arabs to support the axis of evil
trio Iran and al-Maliki and Bashar al-Assad in front of the international
community and Aahamanm as Islamic organization back to the Sunnis to confuse
and shuffling papers and Tajir emergence of this organization for the benefit
of the Persian state Safavid in all of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon!!! There is an
inclusive (the State of Egypt, Algeria, the Persian) and Daamus Yemen, Somalia,
Saudi Arabia and Qatar Dasmq and thus to be achieved the dream of the
establishment of Iran's alleged empire from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian
Gulf ......

Maliki kill the sons of Sunni Arabs in Iraq by U.S. weapons
under the pretext of fighting terrorism ...!!! In order to get Maliki to a
third term in the upcoming elections and to pay Iran terrorist axis of evil,
the first in the Middle East and to support the Assad regime offender in Syria
in his war against the Syrian people, with the participation of the terrorist
Hezbollah-led criminal Hassan Nasrallah, and to achieve the so-called Shiite
Crescent stretching from Iran through Iraq from the western region and the
North-West to Syria and then to Lebanon and included the West Bank and Gaza,
led by Hamas, in order to achievethat,the al-Maliki launched a
war against the population in the western Anbar then intends to go about the
city of Mosul under the claim of waging war against terrorism and al-Qaeda and
Daash terrorist and the state of Iraq and the Levant terrorist to unload those
areas of the aborigines of murder and forced displacement of Ahlal replaced
loyal to the owners of the clients of those areas and to encourage the
migration of dependency Iranian Shia in Iraq to live in the provinces of Anbar
and Mosul,where he is now an army and militias, al- Maliki since 22 days to wage
war savagery against the civilian population
defenseless in Anbar and Fallujah, prompting the sons of the tribes of those
areas to defend themselves and their cities and the lives of their families and
forced to

cover their faces for
fear of treachery and allies and the army andmilitias , al-M aliki and fear ofoppression their families prison inmate for the sake of their
safety and the safety of their families from the oppression of militia
al-Maliki. And in order to verify the absence of any terrorist organization in
Anbar and Fallujah call on all journalists and media correspondents and
international satellite channels of Western and Arab nations
to enter those areas to bring the reality of what is happening on the land of
Fallujah, Anbar and presented to the public opinion of all the credibility and
professionalism to demonstrate the falsity of the claim-Maliki, who are waging
a sectarian war for the Iran's expansionist ambitions in the region …...

....Iran cunning used
say multiply infected with win as Britain's divide and conquer method used by
coerced her trick and Iran allied itself with Al-Qaida in secret since the failed
occupation of Iraq in 1991 after the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait
Iran intensified its malicious corporate reputation with the rule under the
banner of the specious defence of Muslims to implement its expansionist wall in
the region through the sleeper cells and its customers in the region and at the
same time avoiding confrontation with America and the West and, on this basis,
the rule adopted by Iran Before the events of 11 September had supported
financially and heavily armed, trained and developed sleeper cells in all the
countries of Western and Eastern world started violently and the September 11
terrorist left the biggest adversaries are American and Arabic and Islamic
States in the trap.The benefits reaped from the allied Taliban Afghanistan war
of 2001, paving the way for Al-Qaida members and its leaders embrace fleeing
the battlefield with direct as prisoners to use as is learned from it to make a
large fissure among Arabic-friendly llamrika and West of uniqueness is in the
region for expansion and this is what happened when implicated America by their
clients (Ahmad Chalabi and followers of Shia and Kurds demanding a greater
Kurdistan and Sunni Arabs from Iraq and outcasts) in launching the war on Iraq
in 2003 Iran has sought to occupy Iraq without losing any launch or soldier's
life and then stir the sleeping cells to carry out terrorist attacks in Western
countries and America and the accused always misguided Muslims and Arabs to
protect itself from Iran and move them in Arabic to confuse security and
stability, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen and Lebanon by Hassan
Nasrallah and new teeth in Syria through the terrorist organizations Islamic
State of Iraq, Syria we daash) associated with the rule, which is under the
supervision and with the full support of the Iran through its vulnerable souls
Arab region and Iran maintain peace with America after it ruled were crushed
and crippled Iran will is today the undisputed Lady of the region and the
Middle East serving the MPR when revolutions in Arabic countries the Arab
spring and followed by reversals

Iran is today of
supporting Al Qaeda terrorist and accessories from Iraq and the State of Iraq,
Syria and terrorist organization of terrorist sabotage in daash States Arabic,
Western and American material and trained and heavily armed after that have accidentally
escaped from America's main base in 2001 in preparation for the Grand Knight
Empire

The last US declaration of war by Congress was in 1942, before Gates was born. There has been a de facto constitutional amendment to wage war by wimpy resolution since. No surprise that he hadn't considered the implications before the interview.

Hindsight is 20/20. For those who fail to learn the lessons of history they are doomed to repeat the mistakes.

I believe this nation is uniquely poised and positioned to exact great influence in the world. That is true even today. But, we are less able and less influential due to the utter dysfunction and disunity in our federal government. Such a situation undermines our own efforts to look after and protect our global interests. This is especially important in a world where emerging economic powers are beginning to assert themselves on the global stage.

What Gates is illustrating in his book and his interview is just that eroding influence that seems to be counterbalanced by our own willingness to engage in military action on a preventative basis. From my perspective this isn't good for our country or for the regions where we are so engaged. We aren't learning the lessons of history.

The reason Congress grew silent about the yapped-about Syrian "intervention" plans was the fact that the American public as vehemently opposed. This was a very expensive lesson, but the Bushie neocons made a contribution.

Ono, these cuties will not stick their political necks out. good thing, because we do not need, nor can we sustain, a war with Iran.

This way, they can let Obama or any president take or not take action, and snipe from the sidelines.

I'm reading Gates' book now. He is a well meaning bureaucrat, A VERY VERBOSE AND POOR WRITER. Six hundred pages?

The guy is being paid by contract for three books and can hardly write a declarative sentence. Did anyone read his first book?

He is a good person and bends over backwards to be diplomatic -- too much so!. There are interesting comments and insights such as how Lincoln described his thinking process by metaphor. A sort of takeoff of Hannah Arendt though that is a stretch. He respects Bush I and II. He respects his troops. (He loves his troops.) Frankly, I do not recommend the book unless you are a serious history reader. rln

When will these guys wakeup and grow up! Preemptive strikes are a cowards play!! America wasn't founded or built upon the concept that we have to act like cowards and strike against people that haven't struck first! The school yard bullies never seem to grow up from their beliefs that they can bully or harm whomever they like based upon their paranoid view that everyone is their enemy and they have to strike first, before someone might possibly strike back.

Gates is right in that Congress needs to make the decision. Perhaps then these war hawks wouldn't have such control of all our lives and future.

Unexpectedly, former
Defense Secretary Gates is suffering from the negative impact of his
Memoir-gate. He has been severely criticized by his former colleagues and
subordinates for his perhaps untimely revelation. In fact, one could detect his
warring stance in most of his speeches during his short but powerful tenancy.
The world must have been fortunate he was not given the chance to have his
ways. Otherwise...

“The irony is, I believe in recent years—and, coming from me, this is a
strange thing to say—but one of the things that I lament is that,
because of the changes in the Congress, I think they’ve become less
important in the governance of the nation—they’ve weakened themselves in
the decision-making process.”

Because they don't do their jobs. The hyper-partisan nature of Congress these days is staggering. The name of the game is obstructionism and brinkmanship.

I think that at this point Gates is caught in the "worth the sacrifice" trap and he can't bring himself to ever be honest about bad decisions to go to war. This is a recurring problem. There's plenty of patriotism and it can be manipulated to overcome critical thinking about the wise use of force. Bush II, Gates, and others have used the fact that we can be manipulated by our loyalty to the point that we leave out the "thinking" phase. Hopefully this will not happen on Iran.

The one thing I admire Obama for is getting us out of Iraq (actually, Bush had planned this) and out of Afghanistan. However, I don't why he agreed to the surge, which costs us billions and blood (hundreds of thousands of NATO and innocent civilians).

There was no reason Obama should have been passionate about the wars, and certainly no reason for him to have trusted the creepy David Petareus.

The odd thing about Iraq was that even though we invaded the homeland of the people living there, anybody who had the audacity to fight back was automatically labelled a "terrorist." There were certainly more twisted distortions of reality than the mere lack of WMD's.

What is with this guy? If he wanted to stay important he should have stayed in his position. But now he is yapping away, writing books, etc,, talking dirt about his former co-workers. Pretty crummy fellow. Was he just a trojan horse for the Republicans?

Oh, and hindsight is always 20-20.

Coulda woulda shoulda. Well, they probably shoulda found wmd before they did anything huh Mr. Gates?

The U.S. should NOT deploy military forces in a country, such as the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, WITHOUT a formal Declaration Of War by the Congress. Congress abdicating it's responsibility to do this, and handing carte blanche to ANY POTUS to engage in war is unconstitutional, is undemocratic, dictatorial, dangerous, and should NEVER be done. Any military action SHOULD have the backing of the Congress and the American people.

They probably would have declared war if their reason to take over Iraq wasn't just a big lie. They just decided to take what they could get. If they declared war the press and politicians would of figured out there was no reason to take over Iraq. Still don't know what Bushes actual reason was in the first place. But I guess that secret will die with them.

"The key U.S. intelligence claim—that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction—proved to be unfounded."

That's not quite true. No WMD were found, which is different from saying that the claim that Saddam was developing WMD was unfounded. There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam's WMD went to Syria prior to the invasion, much like much of his air force went to Iran prior to Operation Desert Storm.

Bush 43 does deserve credit for going to Congress to authorize the use of force, as his father did in 1991. Clinton deployed the U.S. military more than 40 times and never once went to Congress. Obama has also failed to go to Congress when he deployed the military in Libya and elsewhere.

@tkulaga How do you suppose, had Al Gore been elected, would he have gotten us out of Iraq after we had divided the country into three no fly zones? Would he have simply said that since there were no weapons of mass destruction, we simply no real interest in protecting the people from Hussien's forces any longer?

Agreed. And, I believe Congress is more than happy hiding behind the War Powers Resolution because it takes responsibility off of them and puts it squarely on the POTUS. When things go South they can point accusing fingers and absolve themselves of any responsibility. Something our elected "leaders" are all too willing and able to do these days.

@DonQuixotic Gates in his comments clearly blamed both sides. "The hyper-partisan nature of congress" is coming from one side. Anyone who doesn't think that hasn't been paying attention. He needs to turn on C-Span and watch the fights and watch the vote.

@notLostInSpace Gates is stuck in the 60's military mentality. It's about "success" to Gates - in other words, the win. He actually thinks Ronald Reagan was successful as the man spent us into tripling the National Debt (which before Reagan was manageable) to show Russia how strong we were - the Russia he knew was weak with their false display of weapons and their rhetoric.

Similar to the way W. sold Iraq - Iraq was weaker than when Bush's dad took back Kuwait but that didn't stop Gates from speaking up then - as W. Bush doubled the National Debt and didn't put the wars on the books. (his doubling was worse than REagan's tripling in terms of actual debt).

He says Biden was wrong on REagan; wrong on Iraq; wrong on Afghanistan. Biden was right on all three especially Afghanistan and switching to counter-insurgency in Pakistan - instead of nation building Afghanistan with tons of monetary waste as we walked past those poppy fields with closed eyes and tried to work with the corrupt Karsai.

@manslagt There is no evidence that WMD went to Syria. None. The CIA's report on WMD, written with full access to Iraqi scientists, military and all the documents after the invasion is clear. There were no WMD, there was no development of WMD, nothing was going on.

@manslagt The WMD's - as in the chemical weapons? You're wrong. The inspectors THAT HAD BEEN AT THE SITES POWLL POINTED OUT IN HIS UN SPEECH - said Powell was lying. He was. There was nothing there.

You mean WMD's as in building a nuke? THat was totally proved a lie when Bush had to lie in his State of the Union about Yellowcake. That lie had been pulled out of a previous speech and in the end someone from Condi's office took the blame for it being put back in. Convenient. In the meantime, a CIA agent was outed because her husband told the truth about that lie.

43 went to Congress right before an election. And he gave distorted information (picked by Cheney) to Congress.

After the whole nasty mess, BUSH MADE A JOKE ABOUT NOT FINDING WMD's - he couldn't find them under his chair at the White House. Ha ha. He fooled you so keep coming on and proving he "could fool some of the people all of the time" (another Bush joke).

Of course they had WMDs at one point Reagan sold them to Saddam back in the 80s to use on Iran. Of course those weapons were destroyed after 9/11 which the UN inspectors on the ground clearly told the world.

Iraqi General Georges Sada has said that Iraq sent planeloads of WMD to Syria during the summer of 2002 after the Zeyzoun dam burst. The planes were supposed to have medical supplies on them, but Sada said that was a rouse. Indeed, records show that those planes did go to Syria when Sada said they went.

Satellite
imagery also picked up unusual activity on the Iraq-Syria border before and during the invasion.
James R. Clapper, who headed the National Imagery and Mapping
Agency in 2003, has said U.S.
intelligence tracked a large number of vehicles, mostly civilian trucks, moving
from Iraq into Syria.
Clapper suggested the trucks may have contained materiel related to Iraq’s WMD programs.

In a
January 5, 2004 letter to Dutch newspaper, De TelegraafNizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who had defected
from Syria to Western Europe, said he knew of three
sites in Syria where Iraq’s
WMD were kept. One of those sites was a series on tunnels under the town of
al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria.
Reportedly, the tunnels were part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the
Scud missile.Interestingly, al-Baida is located near the Zeyzoun dam.

That same
month, David Kay, who had recently resigned as the head
of the Iraqi Survey Group, said, “[W]e know from some of the
interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some
components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria,
and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”

For those who believe Iraq
would never consider sending its weapons to a neighboring country, there is
precedence for this. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, more than 120 Iraqi Air Force aircraft fled
to Iran to escape destruction.

@tkulaga@bragg916 He was controlled? Wasn't he the one who could be seen on the nightly news riring his weapon in the air to celebrate the deaths of innocent bombing victims? What does it mean to say he was controlled in respect to policy? Keep the no fly zones? He had his army move in without air support to eliminate the opposition in the south. Think the opposition forces in the south thought he was controlled and we were protecting citizens as Clinton claimed was the goal?

@mantisdragon91@manslagt@jmacSo where is the evidence? And if Saddam did not want an invasion why didn't he cooperate with the UN inspectors and demonstrate that he did indeed destroy his WMD? South Africa had done this in the past and even offered to send experts to Iraq to help Iraq comply with UNSC resolutions.

Unfortunately, I think the moonbats' brains turn off whenever this topic is discussed.

@mantisdragon91@manslagt@jmacThat's not what Bush said in the State of the Union address. According to the Butler
report, “Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which was released in the United
Kingdom in July 2004, concluded that “the statement in
President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003...was well
founded.”

@mantisdragon91@manslagtIf you want to make that argument that biological and chemical agents are WMD (even though they have not been weaponized), they you would also have to argue that WMD existed in Iraq after the invasion since those agents were in Iraqi labs.